“It is a disease that’s already claimed 85 lives and it is a case here in the city of Trenton,” McBride said at the April council meeting, a day after April Fools. “Blue Waffle Disease is supposed to be a virus that is 10 times greater at this point than the AIDS virus.”

McBride said the disease was brought to her attention by a caller, who asked what the city was doing to remedy the problem.

An easy Internet search would have turned up numerous responses that the infectious disease that supposedly affects a woman’s private parts is fake. There is also no mention of Blue Waffle Disease on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

But McBride went to the meeting unprepared and was nationally recognized for her blunder.

Snopes.com, a website that validates or debunks urban legends, verified Blue Waffle Disease as false, citing The Trentonian’s story as its backdrop.

To make matters worse, when confronted after the meeting by a Trentonian reported about her gaffe, McBride still contended Blue Waffle Disease was real.

She even pulled out her iPad to show a handful of full-color pictures of nasty looking infections in a female’s private area from an unrecognized website to defend her point.

“What is made up is the effect, but the disease is real,” she said at the time.

It wasn’t until another man at the meeting told her that it was a hoax, that McBride realized she had been duped.

“Somebody played a joke on you because Blue Waffle is an urban legend,” he said. “It’s not an actual disease at all, so somebody just (pranked) you.”

McBride’s snafu provides a lesson to all elected officials: Do your homework before speaking at a meeting or deal with the consequences.